Atticus and Bond: the inspiration for Rosa Klebb?

Another titbit from the Sunday Times's Atticus archive: in July 1954, Ian Fleming wrote about a Madame Rybkin, a forbidding figure in Russian Intelligence who held the rank of colonel and, Fleming claims, was the most powerful woman in the world of espionage. Sounds familiar?

— Edward Biddulph (@bondmemes) September 23, 2019

In From Russia, With Love (1957), Rosa Klebb holds the rank of colonel and is 'one of the most powerful women in the [Soviet] state, and certainly the most feared'.

— Edward Biddulph (@bondmemes) September 23, 2019

Interestingly, Fleming links Colonel Rybkin to the Khokhlov case [a Russian assassin who defected to the CIA in 1954], which is alluded to several times in From Russia, With Love.

— Edward Biddulph (@bondmemes) September 23, 2019

The return of SMERSH?

It’s well known that when Ian Fleming made SMERSH the arch-enemy of the British Secret Service in the James Bond books, beginning with Casino Royale in 1953, the Soviet Union’s counter-intelligence organisation had been disbanded for over ten years. As a literary device, though, the conceit was a good one, and it also proved attractive to EON, who alluded to the organisation in The Living Daylights (1987) in the form of a plot code-named Smiert Spionam (‘Death to spies’), the phrase that gave SMERSH its name and its motto.
 

Smiert Spionam - a scene from The Living Daylights (1987)

To most people, SMERSH exists firmly in the realms of fiction and is as real as SPECTRE, the criminal organisation that replaced it as Bond’s nemesis. However, recent events in Salisbury – the poisoning of the former Russian double agent, Colonel Sergei Skripal – has reminded journalists and commentators about SMERSH, its activities, and its connection with James Bond.

In an article for The Guardian, Jamie Doward, Marc Bennetts and Kevin Rawlinson write of the implicit threat that Skripal is likely to have faced since coming to Britain in 2010 after being released from prison in Russia as part of a major spy swap. “Many in the FSB [the successor to the KGB] are fond of quoting the motto of SMERSH, Stalin’s counter-intelligence unit: ‘Death to spies.’” 

Owen Matthews, writing in Newsweek, similarly writes about the sense of betrayal that Russian agents are likely to have felt: “As a convicted double agent, [Skripal] certainly betrayed the Russian secret world’s honour code of ‘death to spies’ – the actual name of the Soviet wartime counterintelligence service, SMERSH.” (I'm reminded of Gogol's words to Max Zorin in A View To A Kill: "No one ever leaves the KGB".)

Writing for The Conversation website about the history of state-sanctioned assassination, historian Dan Lomas places SMERSH as one of a number of Russian security agencies, from the Soviet Cheka to the current SVR, that have resorted to targeted killings, particularly those regarded as traitors.

In an article in the Daily Record, Torcuil Crichton writes of the message that the poisoning was designed to deliver – that “Britain is a dangerous place for enemies of the Russian state,” and reminds readers that ‘death to spies’ is the phrase associated with SMERSH.

The Bond connection is recalled by Eric S Margolis, writing a piece published in various media outlets, including Malaysia's Sun Daily and Germany's Contra magazine. He describes ‘Death to spies’ as the special unit formed to liquidate traitors and turncoats, adding that “readers of James Bond books will recognise SMERSH.” 

James Bond is also mentioned in an article on the Skripal case published in Paris Match. “The years pass, the style remains,” Pauline Lallement writes. “SMERSH, the sworn enemy of James Bond, can still be recognised.” The article concludes with the words, “Bons baisers de Russie”, the French title of From Russia, With Love. 

Benoît Rayski’s piece in the French-language news website, Atlantico, reinforces the Bond connection with a photo of Sean Connery as Bond (of Never Say Never Again vintage). He writes, “Forty years ago [sic] in a series of famous films, James Bond faced agents of SMERSH, the armed wing of Moscow. It was at the time of the cold war. Today we are witnessing a fairly successful remake. Out of necessity for a happy ending, 007 always won. But this time?"

The events in Salisbury has brought an organisation that has long been consigned to history and is largely known outside Russia through the Bond books back to global attention. In the note prefacing From Russia, With Love (1957), Ian Fleming wrote: “SMERSH, a contraction of Smiert Spionam – Death to Spies – exists and remains today the most secret department of the soviet government.” Perhaps Fleming’s words weren’t so far from the truth after all.

When James Bond met Bridget Jones

You won’t often find me curled up on the sofa reading the latest chick lit, but when a quotation from a review on the back of a novel by Helen Fielding, author of Bridget Jones’s Diary, claimed that the book was ‘a Bond-style romp,’ I was intrigued enough to acquire the book and start reading.

Olivia Joules in Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination (Picador, 2003) is a freelance journalist who writes for beauty magazines and the newspaper style supplements, but aspires to be a foreign reporter. When Olivia is sent to Miami for a face-cream launch, she meets a charming and mysterious man who claims to be a movie producer, but whom Olivia suspects to be an international terrorist. Despite the doubts of her colleagues, as well as her own, Olivia follows a trail that takes her to Los Angeles, Honduras, and Sudan, risking her life, as well as her career.
 
Inevitably, the book contains several nods and references to James Bond. In her hotel room in LA, Olivia dusts the numbers on the combination lock of the safe. ‘Like James Bond,’ she reflects, though ‘James Bond probably wouldn’t have actually given the numbers a silken, light reflecting sheen.’ (Olivia uses Angel Dust face-powder, rather than talcum powder, which Bond uses to dust the locks of his attaché case in From Russia With Love.)
 
Later, when realising that her room’s been bugged, Olivia makes a call to get the details of the Spy Shop on Sunset Boulevard (‘You know, spies? James Bond? Kiefer Sutherland?’), and eventually is kitted up with the latest gadgets, among them a bug detector, an invisible-ink pen, a tiny digital camera, and a ring with a mirror that allows Olivia to see behind her.
 
Back in London, Olivia is met by MI6 officers, and is taken seriously enough by MI6 to be taken on as an agent. On a boat on the Thames on her way to a safe house, Olivia’s heart was ‘leaping with excitement, the James Bond theme playing in her mind. She was a spy! She formed her fingers into a gun shape and whispered, “Kpow! Kpow!”.’ At the safe house, Olivia is introduced to Professor Widgett, a veteran spymaster and Arabist described by Scotland Yard’s liaison as ‘the James Bond of his day’.
 
While there is no Q-inspired character, Olivia is nevertheless equipped with some handy gadgets, cunningly sewn into clothing (the buttons on her shirt, for instance, are replaced by miniature circular saws) or disguised as the typical accoutrements of a handbag (such as a lipsalve that emits a powerful blinding flash). Interestingly, Olivia is also given a belt fashioned from gold coins ‘for buying her way out a mess’, recalling the straps of gold sovereigns hidden in Bond’s attaché case. 
 
Apart from these obvious references to Bond, there are other aspects that are redolent of elements of Bond books, even if the similarities are coincidental. Olivia Joules is working for the Sunday Times, which is the paper for which Ian Fleming worked. There are shades of Vivienne Michel’s story from The Spy who Loved Me in Olivia’s own backstory. Fed up after a series of bad relationships while in her teens, she vows: ‘I’m not going to give a s*** about anything any more. I’m going to be a top journalist or an explorer and do something that matters.’ And like James Bond, Olivia is an orphan, her parents having died in a road accident when she was fourteen.
 
More generally, the book is as globe-trotting as any James Bond film, and, like Bond, Olivia is a keen and proficient scuba-diver. (And yes, there are sharks.)
 
I have to admit, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Spotting the Bond references are fun, of course, but the book is also an entertaining page-turner. Gadgets, resourceful spies, witty one-liners, narrow escapes, urbane villains, cocktails and romantic entanglements – it's got the lot.

James Bond films referenced in latest VW commercial

The latest Volkswagen TV advert for the Golf GTE looks to two classic James Bond films for inspiration. The ‘Button’ advert, created by adam&eveDDB, promotes the vehicle’s hybrid technology, which allows drivers to combine electric and petrol engines at the push of a button. The advert features a series of archetypal movie villains with their fingers poised over big red button ready to wreak destruction. We then see the car – and its all-important button – in action before the advert ends with the tagline, ‘a more responsible use of power’.

Viewers are treated to a pantheon of villains. There’s sci-fi supervillain on a spaceship who presses the button to fire a laser that blows up a planet, which is an obvious nod to Star Wars. We also see a mad professor straight out of a 1930/40s’ black-and-white horror film, who presses the button to animate his own Frankenstein’s monster. Then there are villains from a 1970s’ blaxploitation-type film, a Lethal Weapon-style buddy cop film, and a Indiana Jones-like adventure. 

Naturally, the film series that defined many of the standard tropes or memes of the movie villain is not forgotten. A man strapped to a near-vertical table is looking at the wrong end of a large laser weapon. A woman in a military uniform is at the control panel and laughs maniacally as she presses the button to fire the laser.

What’s interesting is that the scene draws on two Bond films. The laser and the set clearly derives from Goldfinger (1964). There are shades of Ken Adam’s designs, as the set in the advert replicates the little office, complete with employees and a small set of steps, at the back of the laser room in Goldfinger, the golden-brown colour scheme, and the angular walls and metal supports. The laser weapons are also similar in design, albeit that one has green elements, the other blue.
 

The laser rooms in the VW ad (top) and Goldfinger

The villain is modelled on Rosa Klebb in From Russia With Love (1963). She wears a Russian-style military jacket with gold buttons, a light brown or khaki shirt and a brown tie similar to the uniform that Rosa Klebb, played by Lotte Lenya, wears in the Bond film. Their hair is different, but it’s sufficiently close to reinforce the link.
 

A Rosa Klebb-style villain in the VW ad (top) and Lotte Lenya as Rosa Klebb

VW’s ‘The Button’ ad is the latest in a long line of commercials that reference the James Bond films, despite the products having no connection to them. Back in the 1980s, PG Tips advertised its tea bags with the help of a chimpanzee spy called Bond, Brooke Bond. More recently, Sky Sports enlisted David Beckham to advertise its services in a Bond-style advert, and Jaguar evoked Spectre in its advert for the Jaguar XE. Coincidentally, the Sky and Jaguar campaigns, like that for VW, also focused on the villain, demonstrating that the Bond villain is every bit as enduring in popular culture as Bond himself, and is especially appealing to advert writers.

Fiction mirrors fiction - James Bond and Eric Ambler's The Mask of Dimitrios

One of the numerous volumes on James Bond's bookshelf (there are more than you think) is Eric Ambler's The Mask of Dimitrios. Bond reads the novel, published in 1939, on the plane en route to Istanbul in From Russia, with Love (1957).

The novel concerns a writer of detective mysteries called Charles Latimer. In Istanbul, he's introduced to Colonel Haki, the head of the secret police, who, interested in Latimer's profession, tells him about a real murder. A man called Dimitrios, by all accounts a nasty piece of work, has washed up dead, having been stabbed. As far as Haki is concerned, the case is closed, but out of professional curiosity, Latimer begins to look into the life of this criminal. Following a trail from Turkey to Greece, Bulgaria, and Paris, he discovers that the truth about Dimitrios isn't so clear cut, as events take a sinister and dangerous turn. 

What Bond thought of the book is unrecorded, but he may have returned to the book from time to time and wondered whether there were certain echoes of the book in his own adventures. 

For instance, according to the records of the Greek authorities, Dimitrios is 182 centimetres tall. Bond may have raised an eyebrow at that – Bond himself is only one centimetre taller, as mentioned in From Russia, with Love, and indeed, we subsequently find out that Dimitrios is a little taller still.

Then there's the description of the nature of spy work. At one point of the novel, Latimer meets a polish spy named Grodek, who Latimer discovers recruited Dimitrios as an agent. In a subsequent letter recounting his meeting, Latimer wonders whether 'governments of adult men and women behave like children playing Red Indians'. The phrase would have been familiar to Bond. In Casino Royale, Le Chiffre, while torturing Bond with a carpet beater, tells Bond that 'the game of Red Indians is over, quite over', and later Bond admits to himself that he 'had been playing Red Indians through the years.' It's unlikely that Ian Fleming, perhaps having read The Mask of Dimitrios before he wrote Casino Royale, borrowed the phrase from Ambler, as, during the Second World War, he called his commando unit, 30AU, his Red Indians, but the coincidence is interesting all the same.

In another part of the book, Latimer discovers that Dimitrios was also a drug pedlar, and learns about the drug trade from a former associate of Dimitrios, a Mr Peters. Latimer finds out, for instance, that drugs are smuggled into Europe from Istanbul on the Orient Express, with the help of a bribed sleeping car attendant. Bond, of course, travels on the Orient Express in From Russia, with Love, but the train is mentioned again in the short story 'Risico', which is about the drugs trade. Fleming describes how opium is smuggled onto the train in Istanbul and hidden in false upholstery in the carriages, with the help of bribed train cleaners. As he set off to Rome to tackle Colombo, and then Kristatos, Bond must have been pleased about having had something of a grounding in drug smuggling from Eric Ambler.

What about the nature of good and evil? James Bond wrestles with this question as he recuperates from injuries sustained by the carpet beater in Casino Royale. Bond tells Mathis that 'in order to tell the difference between good and evil, we have manufactured two images representing the extremes – and we call them God and the Devil'. Latimer also reflects on the nature of good and evil, and considers that traditional concepts are not sufficient: 'It was useless trying to explain [Dimitrios] in terms of good and evil. They were no more than baroque abstractions. Good business and bad business were the elements of the new theology.' 

It's hard to say whether Ian Fleming had The Mask of Dimitrios in mind as he wrote Casino Royale and 'Risico', or that the book was especially influential in the writing of From Russia, with Love, but as Bond finds himself in the same murky environments as Eric Ambler's hero, it's unsurprising that there would be there be some aspects in common between Ambler's and Fleming's work.

I never left: How the book Bond's biography has remained part of the film Bond's backstory

The James Bond of the cinema may have only passing resemblance to the literary Bond, but there are some biographical details of the literary Bond that the film Bond has retained more or less throughout the film series. However, you won't find many references to them on the screen, but rather in the pages of official James Bond annuals, specials and part-work magazines published over the years.

In James Bond in Focus (1964), one of the earliest special publications to tie in with the release of a Bond film, in this case Goldfinger, a description of Bond's background refers to his flat in the King's Road in Chelsea, Blades club and Bond's elderly Scots housekeeper, all taken from Ian Fleming's novels.

There are no references to Bond's background in the James Bond 007 annuals for 1965 and 1966, but The James Bond Annual of 1968 more than makes up for the oversight, with Bond's biography presented as a confidential Secret Service personnel file. From this we learn that the young Bond attended Eton and Fettes, his parents were Andrew Bond and Monique Delacroix, and that he is 6ft 2in tall. We also read in a section of the annual devoted to Bond's cars that Bond's pride and joy was a supercharged Bentley 4½ litre, which Bond's mechanic treated as if it were his own; what's more, the car could reach 100mph with ease, but was destroyed while in pursuit of Sir Hugo Drax.

Various Bond novels were mined for these details. The information on the Bentley was lifted from Moonraker, Bond's height was taken from SMERSH's dossier on Bond in From Russia, with Love (though changed from metric to imperial), while the details of Bond's schooling and parents came from M's obituary of Bond in You Only Live Twice. The inclusion of this last aspect is somewhat ironic, given that the film version of the book, which the annual largely promoted, was the first film to deviate substantially from Fleming's text and included no reference to Bond's background. 

For a number of later Bond films, 'specials' took the place of annuals, and some of these allude to Bond's background. The James Bond 007 Moonraker Special (1979) includes a personnel file that lifts the wording of the file in the 1968 annual almost verbatim. There are minor changes – for instance, Bond's height is given in metric (1.83m, the figure from the SMERSH dossier), and his interests change from Greek food to good food – but otherwise the 1968 file had essentially been reprinted. Thus, we also get the details of Bond's childhood: educated at Eton and Fettes, parents Andrew Bond and Monique Delacroix. 

But there are some additional details. Bond's weight is 76kg, he has a scar down his right cheek and right shoulder and has signs of plastic surgery on the back of his right hand, and Bond is an expert pistol shot, boxer and knife-thrower. All these details, previously ignored, are also taken, word for word, from the SMERSH dossier of From Russia, with Love.

Bond's childhood is the subject of quiz questions in the James Bond For Your Eyes Only Special (1981), with readers invited to name Bond's parents (the answer given, naturally, as Andrew Bond and Monique Delacroix), describe how they died (mountain climbing accident), and name the school from which Bond was expelled (Eton). The last two, from the obituary in You Only Live Twice, but not described in earlier annuals or specials, add to the biography associated with the film Bond.

There is no reference to Bond's background in the James Bond Octopussy Special (1983), the A View To A Kill Story Book (1985), or The Official James Bond 007 Fact File (1989), although the last, which coincided with the release of Licence to Kill, does mention Bond's London flat.

In contrast, GoldenEye: The Official Movie Souvenir Magazine (1995) is full of information, which again is lifted from the SMERSH dossier. Thus, Bond is 183cm tall, he weighs 76kg, and has a scar on his right shoulder (the scar on his cheek has evidently disappeared) and signs of plastic surgery on the back of his right hand. In addition, Bond is an expert pistol shot, boxer, and knife-thrower, and, new to the film Bond biography, he does not use disguises, drinks but not to excess, and speaks French and German (so much for Bond's first in oriental languages from Cambridge).

The magazine doesn't mention Bond's parents, but here the film of GoldenEye enlightens us. Alec Trevelyan tells Bond, “We're both orphans, James. But while your parents had the luxury of dying in a climbing accident, mine survived the British betrayal and Stalin's execution squads.”

The details given the GoldenEye film and magazine appeared again in part-work magazine 007 Spy Files (2002). Issue 1 states that Bond is 1.83m tall and weighs 76kg, and has a scar on his right shoulder and another on the back of his right hand. Again, there is no reference to the cheek scar, and the reference to plastic surgery has been dropped. Issue 2 adds that Bond was born in Scotland, he was educated at Eton and Fettes, and that his (unnamed) parents were killed in a climbing accident.

James Bond's dossier, published on a special website (and now available via the MI6: The Home of James Bond 007 website), was significantly updated for the release of Casino Royale (2006), particularly his service history, although Bond's new file retained some familiar details. Bond's parents, Andrew Bond and Monique Delacroix died in a climbing accident, Bond attended Eton and Fettes, and he drinks, but not to excess. Further details from the obituary in You Only Live Twice were added to this.

The part-work 007 Spy Cards was published in 2008. Issue 1 gives Bond's height as 1.83m and weight as 76g, and states that he was educated at Eton and Fettes. It drops Bond's fluency in French and German, but restores his first in oriental languages from Cambridge. Bond's file adds that his parents were killed in a climbing accident, and the sharp-eyed reader might spot his parents' names on an image of his birth certificate. Bond's skills are now hand-to-hand combat, running, skiing, swimming and climbing, rather than shooting, boxing and knife-throwing.

Very little of this information, re-emerging intermittently over the years, has made it to the screen, but the Daniel Craig era has seen a return to Fleming's Bond to the extent that Bond's biography has provided essential plot points. In Skyfall (2012), M and Bond allude to the death of Bond's parents, and in the graveyard of the chapel close to Skyfall, there is a gravestone recording the death of Andrew Bond and Monique Delacroix Bond. And in Spectre (2015), more is made of Bond's childhood since the death of his parents. There is still no mention of Bond's height or weight, though.

Far from ignoring the Bond novels, the various official publications that have tied in with film releases, if not the films themselves, have demonstrated that Ian Fleming's description of Bond's background and characteristics has remained part of the film Bond's dossier. 

There has been variation, and over time details have been dropped (and sometimes restored). Some details, though, have survived unchanged, and have been repeated often over a period of almost 50 years. These include Bond's height, weight, childhood education, and the details of Bond's parents. Ultimately, this is testament to Fleming's writing, in this case the SMERSH dossier of From Russia, with Love, and M's obituary in You Only Live Twice, which has proved to be enduring and highly adaptable.

What Bond villains are reading

I'm reading – or rather re-reading – PG Wodehouse's 1913 novel, The Little Nugget, at the moment. If the title is familiar to you, it may because it's mentioned in the novel of From Russia, with Love. The book is in a pile of other 'membership badges of the rich man's club' next to SMERSH killer Donovan 'Red' Grant, who's lying prone in the garden of a Crimean villa, waiting for his regular masseuse.

Wodehouse's comic tale set within a private school, featuring romance, detectives, gangsters, and plots to kidnap a repulsive schoolboy, might seem an odd choice for a psychopath (although the kidnapping element might be of professional interest to Grant). But then again, the book is the sort of volume that SMERSH would make Grant read as part of his training to develop the persona of a wealthy, sophisticated man, allowing him to enter English society and intelligence circles. (Such methods were standard for Soviet spy agencies. The Penkovsky Papers, for example, include a manual that instructs Soviet agents operating in the USA how to behave without raising suspicion – see The Cold War Spy Pocket Manual, by Philip Barker.)

Moving inside the villa, we get a glimpse of Grant's preferred reading: stacks of 'garish paperbacks and hardcover thrillers'. A selection of pulp fiction about seductive heroines, sultry femme fatales, and hard-boiled detectives, I shouldn't wonder.

There is a similar whiff of pretence in Goldfinger's reading. In the hall of the Grange, Goldfinger's pile in Kent, James Bond peruses a copy of The Field, a magazine for country squires and the hunting, fishing and shooting set. The magazine, placed where it can be seen, displays Goldfinger's credentials as a respectable member of the community. 

Photo: New Yorker Books

We get a different picture of Goldfinger in his bedroom, as Bond discovers in the drawer of Goldfinger's bedside table a copy of The Hidden Sight of Love, a salacious novel that is Goldfinger's 'solitary indiscretion'. (I imagine Bond uttering 'dirty bugger' to himself at this point.) The book does indeed exist, and if you're interested, a New York bookseller currently has a copy listed on eBay. According to the description, the book is a piece of classic Victorian erotic fiction reprinted by Palladium Publications in January 1958, which means that it was hot off the press when Ian Fleming sat down to write Goldfinger that month in Jamaica (the novel was published in 1959). Well, Fleming did have an interest in promoting 'lost books', as we see from his championing of Hugh Edward's All Night at Mr Stanyhurst's.

We know the sort of books James Bond reads – manuals, golf books, thrillers, inspiring books about politics and the intelligence community – but in two of the Bond novels, we also get a sense of the books that the villains read. In contrast to Bond's library, there's something not quite honest about the villains' choice. Just what we'd expect, of course, but I also wonder whether it reflects Fleming's own tastes, just as Bond's library does.

James Bond in Allen Dulles' Great Spy Stories from Fiction

Allen Dulles, director of the CIA from 1953 to 1961, has a special place in James Bond lore. Dulles was keen to meet Ian Fleming after being persuaded  by Jacqueline Kennedy to read the James Bond books, and a few years after that began an enduring friendship with Fleming after they met for dinner in London (subjects discussed at the dinner table included the U-2 surveillance aircraft). Fleming subsequently mentioned Dulles in his books, in Bond has among his reading Dulles' classic book of tradecraft, The Craft of Intelligence (1963). (Bond himself is a subject of discussion in Dulles' book, which must have made Bond question his effectiveness as a secret agent.)

Dulles continued to pay tribute to Fleming in another of his books, Great Spy Stories from Fiction (Collins, 1969), an anthology of spy stories by, among many others, Len Deighton, Eric Ambler, Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maugham, John Le Carré, and, of course, Ian Fleming. Dulles' recollections of Fleming introduced an extract from the first Bond book Dulles read, From Russia, with Love. Bond is not confined to this section, however, and looms large throughout the volume.

In his introduction to the Bond extract (chapter 28: La Tricoteuse, renamed here as 'The End of James'), Dulles explains how Fleming anticipated changes in public interest (for example from straight spy stories to adventures that featured international criminal organisations), why Bond bears little resemblance to real spies, why the CIA was always on the look-out for agents with Bond's qualities in spite of this, and how Bond's gadgets inspired the CIA's own inventions.

There are more references to Bond in other parts of the anthology. Allen Dulles, in his foreword to the volume, identifies the essential elements common to many spy stories, singling out From Russia, with Love as a novel that comprises most of them, including the quest, reaching the target, and the chase. The introduction to a section on 'the mysterious East' considers that you cannot write about the East if you haven't been there, and cites James Bond as a jet-set agent, having visited Tokyo in You Only Live Twice. A section on 'gimmickry' is inevitably introduced with a reference to Bond's trick attaché case in From Russia, with Love.

The section in which the James Bond excerpt appears is entitled, 'Some losers'. The public, Dulles argues, expects its fictional heroes to best the enemy and be winners. So when those heroes lose the battle, it's a shock for the readers, especially when one of the losers is James Bond, the most popular of all the modern fictional spies, according to Dulles.

The inclusion of James Bond in this anthology of spy fiction reflects Allen Dulles' love of the Bond books, as well as his friendship with Ian Fleming. The frequent references to Bond, however, is testament to the significant, even predominant, place that Fleming's creation had in spy fiction and popular culture by the late 1960s. No anthology or discussion of spy fiction would be complete without Bond.

Blofeld's cat in the Bond films and beyond

There's a moment in Spooks: The Greater Good when MI5 agent Will Holloway, played by Kit Harington, enters the house of a suspected villain and is confronted by a white cat. Will quips that they've got their man, alluding to the white cat associated with James Bond's arch-nemesis, Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Since making its first appearance in From Russia With Love (1963), Blofeld's cat (we never find out its name) has become a well-established meme in popular culture, eliciting recognition even without the appearance of Blofeld or Bond, and providing useful shorthand in television or film dramas for villainy, usually of the grand, international kind.

The Blofeld of Ian Fleming's novels does not own a cat. Goldfinger does, but his is ginger (as befits a man obsessed by gold), not white. Blofeld's cat was, then, an invention of the screenwriters of From Russia With Love, principally Richard Maibaum (although there is something of an older tradition of cats associated with villains; as @craigarthur_nz reminded me, the criminal mastermind Dr Nikola, created by Victorian novelist Guy Boothby, had a black cat named Apollyon). Given that we do not see his face, Blofeld was presumably given a cat to make the shots of his lower body and lap more interesting for the viewer (and dignified for the actor, in this case Anthony Dawson), but in so doing the screenwriters also created a visual symbol of Blofeld and, by extension, (renewed) a symbol of nefarious activity.
 

Blofeld's cat in From Russia With Love

The cat itself is a traditional Persian, a long-haired breed that accompanies all subsequent screen appearances of Blofeld, including For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Never Say Never Again (1983). With the hint that Blofeld will return in Spectre (2015), there is a chance that the cat will return too (will a white cat herald the presence of Blofeld before Blofeld is himself revealed?). If the makers of the forthcoming Bond film rely on recent representations of Blofeld's cat, however, we could be seeing a different breed.

The meme of Blofeld's cat has been imitated almost from the moment that the cat first appeared in the Bond films. For example, in Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon (1973), a film that copies many traits of the Bond films, crime lord Han is seen carrying a white cat, apparently also a traditional Persian. In Austin Powers (1997), Blofeld-like character Dr Evil has a traditional Persian cat at the start of the film.

A more recent allusion to Blofeld's cat is in the film Cats & Dogs (2001), which features as its villain a white cat called Mr Tinkles. The cat instantly recalls Blofeld's cat and identifies the character as villainous, but curiously the breed is a modern Persian, not a traditional Persian of the Bond films, the difference being that the modern Persian has a flatter face.

It is this modern Persian that appears to have been depicted in The World According to Blofeld's Cat: Unofficial Musings from the Volcano Lair (Tumbleweed, 2015), an amusing book in which Blofeld's Cat offers the sort of provocative opinions about subjects as diverse as selfies, call centres, public transport and musicals that many of us are probably thinking but dare not say!

Whether the next incarnation of the screen Blofeld's cat is the modern, or the traditional Persian remains to be seen, but thanks to the success of the early Bond films and regular appearance in later, non-Bond films, the cat is likely to remain an important symbol of on-screen villainy for some yet.

Winston Churchill in the James Bond books

This week saw the launch of events to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of Sir Winston Churchill, who died on 24th January 1965. There will be special exhibitions to celebrate Churchill's life and legacy in Paris, London and at Blenheim Palace, and on 30th January the boat that carried Churchill's coffin down the Thames, the Havengore, will retrace her route, accompanied by a flotilla of other vessels.

There is no doubt that Ian Fleming would have welcomed such a commemoration, as Winston Churchill was one of Fleming's heroes. It was an admiration that began during his childhood. Churchill and Fleming's father, Valentine, both served in the Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars during the First World War. When Valentine was killed on the Western Front, Churchill wrote an appreciation of his close friend for The Times. The young Fleming framed Churchill's words and subsequently hung them in every house in which he lived.

Fleming's admiration only increased during the Second World War. As a key figure in the Naval Intelligence Division, Fleming would have had many dealings with Churchill, and the relationship must have been a very positive one. As he revealed in his introduction to H Montgomery Hyde's biography of Sir William Stephenson, Room 3603: The story of the British Intelligence Centre in New York during World War II (1963), Fleming admired Churchill's courage, fortitude, and service to a cause and his country.

When Ian Fleming came to write the James Bond books, inevitably he found a place for Churchill in the novels. In From Russia, With Love (1957), Fleming states that May, Bond's housekeeper, would call no one 'sir', except the king and Winston Churchill. Later in the novel, we learn that Darko Kerim, head of T section (Turkey), has a copy on his desk of Cecil Beaton's photograph of Winston Churchill.

Cecil Beaton's portrait of Winston Churchill

But Winston Churchill seems to have a larger role – almost a speaking part – in Fleming's third novel, Moonraker (1955). As the terrifying truth of Sir Hugo Drax's plans for his Moonraker rocket emerges, M debates whether to have a word with the prime minister, and Ronald Vallance of Special Branch tells Bond that “the PM's going to broadcast” on the day of the rocket launch. At the end of the adventure, when destruction of London has been averted, M takes a telephone call from the prime minister (Bond is with M at the time), who tells M that he wants Bond out of the country to avoid the press as the Moonraker affair is hushed up.

Ian Fleming wrote Moonraker in the winter of 1954. As Winston Churchill was Prime Minister from October 1951 to April 1955 (Moonraker was published in March 1955), it is quite possible that when Fleming was describing the prime minister in the novel, he had Winston Churchill in mind.

The brief allusions to Winston Churchill in the James Bond books serve to underline Fleming's admiration of the wartime leader, which was forged in Fleming's childhood and remained with him for the rest of his life.

A pilgrimage to Ian Fleming's grave

The monument marking Ian Fleming's grave

Returning from a holiday on the south coast of Devon (unfortunately I missed the chance to visit the beach at Salcombe; Ian Fleming spent his childhood holidays there and recalled them in the opening chapter of On Her Majesty's Secret Service), I decided to take a detour to the village of Sevenhampton, near Swindon in Wiltshire. It is in this village, in the church of St James (appropriately), that Fleming is buried.

Getting to the church wasn't straightforward. Sevenhampton is hidden away, and a crucial road sign at a crossroads had been knocked down. Eerily, an oncoming car that looked suspiciously like a Bentley 4½ litre fitted with an Amhurst Villiers supercharger - the type of car that both Fleming and Bond drove - passed me. A good sign that I was on the right track, I thought! Eventually entering the village, I had to park the car in a lane, and walk back to the main road before turning down a private driveway, then going through a gate and along a footpath to the entrance into the churchyard. Even before one reaches the church, the tall, pyramidal, monument marking Fleming's grave is clearly seen and dominates the churchyard.

The grave is in fact a family tomb. Plaques on the monument additionally identify the graves of Ann Fleming, Ian's wife, and Caspar, their son. The plaque dedicated to Ann, who died in 1981, offers the inscription, “There is none like her, none,” a line taken from Maud (Part XVIII), a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The epitaph to Caspar, who died tragically young in 1975, reads, “To cease upon the midnight with no pain,” which is a quotation from Keats' Ode to a Nightingale. 

The plaque dedicated to Ian Fleming is different in a few ways. It doesn't give Ian's full name (the other two provide middle names), it gives the dates of his birth and death (the other plaques record only the years of birth and death), and in addition to the epitaph, includes the words, “In Memoriam”, which the others lack. I'm not sure how significant these differences are, but they are interesting nonetheless.

The plaque dedicated to Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming's epitaph has a classical source. It reads, “Omnia perfunctus vitae praemia, marces,” and is taken from On the Nature of Things (De rerum natura), a six-book didactic poem written in honour of the Greek philosopher Epicurus by the Roman writer Lucretius, who lived during the first half of the 1st century BC. The line comes from book three (DRN 3.955-62), which in part explores the fear of death, and can be translated as, “Having enjoyed all life's prizes, you now decay.” On their own, the words allude to the inevitability of death and the impermanence of life and material things, but also allude to Fleming's intense, somewhat hedonistic, take on life. The phrase also seems echoes James Bond's philosophy, as revealed in You Only Live Twice: “I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my days.”

Within its original passage, however, the line has a rather more negative connotation. 

“Take your tears away from here, wretch, and quell your complaints. Having enjoyed all life's prizes, you now decay. But because what you want is always at a distance, you shun what is at hand, your life has slipped away incomplete and unenjoyed, and death stands by your head unexpected, before you can leave things satisfied and full.” (Translation by James Warren.)

The passage clearly concerns premature death (Fleming was just 56 when he died of a heart attack), but from its Epicurean viewpoint ridicules the notion that the pursuit of pleasure leads to fulfilment. While happiness, according to Epicurus, derives from the absence of suffering, overindulgence can be a cause of pain, and ultimately unhappiness and death.

I don't know who chose the words – it's possible that Ian Fleming had discovered the phrase and requested that it be inscribed on his gravestone, though it seems more likely that the words were chosen by others (perhaps Ann's literary friends) – but the censorious tone of the rest of the passage makes the wording an odd, and not entirely flattering, selection.

I wonder whether a more sympathetic epitaph might have been provided. The tribute offered by William Plomer at Fleming's memorial service (“Don't let us indulge in vain regrets that he didn't live longer, but let us be glad that he lived so intensely”) is a touching alternative. But in a way Fleming had already provided his own epitaph. In chapter 15 of From Russia, with Love, Kerim Bey talks to Bond about the threat of dying from the 'Iron Crab' (that is, a heart attack). “Perhaps," Kerim says, "they will put on my tombstone 'This Man Died from Living Too Much.'” The words could equally apply to Ian Fleming himself.

References:

Lycett, A, 1995 Ian Fleming: The man behind James Bond, Turner
Warren, J, 2006 Facing death: Epicurus and his critics, Oxford University Press

The rise and fall of Bondmanship

Reading the latest MI6 Confidential, which is excellent as ever, I was intrigued by the reprinting of a 1963 article on 'Bondmanship: the latest rage', which charted the rise of James Bond fan-clubs in 1962 and 1963. The James Bond phenomenon has been responsible for coining (or perpetuating) a number of words and phrases – Bond girl, Bond villain, kiss-kiss-bang-bang, among them – which have entered cultural consciousness and have to lesser or larger extents endured. Bondmanship (at least, in relation to James Bond) is one of those words which have proved less successful. But what is Bondmanship, and why is the word little used today?

In the MI6 Confidential article, Bondmanship is explicitly linked to James Bond fan-clubs. Unlike Bond fan clubs today, whose function is usually to publish newsletters and magazines, keep members up to date on Bond news, and offer forums for discussion of all things Bondian, some of the earliest James Bond clubs brought together people who wished to experience something of the James Bond lifestyle (or at least their version of it), whether that was gambling at exclusive casinos, mixing vodka martinis, drinking the best wines, or seducing elegant ladies (the MI6 Confidential article suggests that these clubs tended to have all male memberships). This was in essence Bondmanship.

The rise of James Bond clubs was so phenomenal, that the Daily Express published an article in February 1963 about the University of Oxford's own James Bond club. Members (presumably male) had identified one Joanna Hare, an undergraduate and daughter of a government minister, as the university's answer to the sort of woman that James Bond meets. And William Plomer, Ian Fleming's literary editor, mentioned the “admirers [who] have formed James Bond clubs” in his address at Ian Fleming's memorial service in September 1964.

But this definition of Bondmanship, emerging from the activities of James Bond clubs, is not the only one. An article in the US newspaper, the Daily Times, dated July 1963 has the headline, “Real 'Bondmanship': Film Makes The Brave Braver as James Bond Rides Top Herd.” For the author, Erskine Johnson, Bondmanship is what differentiates Sean Connery's James Bond, as portrayed in Dr No and From Russia With Love, from other film heroes. Thus, Bondmanship is sweeping “beautiful ladies off their feet” while outwitting “the bad men”, being “braver than Errol Flynn”, or, in the context of “James Bond vs. Russia”, turning "the borsht [sic] into bitter tea.”

By mid 1963, then, the meaning of Bondmanship, still a new word, had begun to diverge, possibly precisely because it was a new word. No one meaning was yet firmly embedded in cultural space, and the word, spreading without any associations except James Bond in a broad sense, was sufficiently adaptable to gain several meanings.

Ultimately, however, Bondmanship was a meme with a short life. It seems to have fallen out of use after the decline of 'Bondomania', which also halted the rise of James Bond clubs, and may even have been little heard by 1965. It is notable that Kingsley Amis' The Book of Bond (1965), which is devoted to what would be recognised as Bondmanship, uses the phrase '007ship'. And in The Bond Affair (1965), edited by Oreste Del Buono and Umberto Eco, there is a description of 'the Bond style'. Today we tend to talk about experiencing the James Bond lifestyle, rather than practising Bondmanship.

It is uncertain why Bondmanship as a phrase didn't catch on, but it seems that Bondmanship didn't achieve a sufficient level of cultural penetration to give it longevity. After all, the word cannot be passed on from one person to another if no one's using it.

History lessons in the Bond films

I used to teach archaeology at a further education college, and when I got to the session on ancient Roman temples, I put From Russia With Love in the dvd player and showed my students the scenes at the Hagia Sophia, a late Roman church, and later a mosque, in Istanbul (and seen also fleetingly in Skyfall). Sometimes I forgot to switch the film off, and we ended up watching rather more of the film that I intended. My students may not have learned much about Roman religious buildings, but at least they received a thorough grounding in the history of James Bond.
 
Something that adds colour and depth to a Bond film is the attention paid to the local cultural background. This has often included aspects of local heritage, and over course of the series, film-viewers have, for example, visited Karnak and the pyramids at Giza in Egypt, accompanied a tour of a  museum of antique glass in Venice (the museum was a film set, but Venice nonetheless has a long tradition of glass-making that dates back to the 13th century), and, most recently in Skyfall, had a small introduction to 16th-century priest holes in Scotland.

As an archaeologist, I have always been particularly interested in the heritage shown in From Russia With Love. The scenes at the Hagia Sophia are fascinating. As Tatiana Romanova enters the site, we see a guide take a party of tourists across the floor of the building. As far as tours go, the guide's technique is pretty poor. There is no sense of chronological sequence, and he talks of noteworthy objects in a seemingly random way.

That is not to say that the information given by the guide is especially inaccurate. The guide points out two alabaster urns dating to the Hellenistic period (4th to 1st century BC), which were brought from the ancient city of Pergamon to Istanbul by Sultan Murad IV. This was indeed the case, although not, as the guide tells us, in 1648, but sometime between 1574 and 1595. The urns continue to stand on opposite sides of the nave. 


The wishing column that the guide also mentions stands at the north-west end of the building. Legend has it that the late Roman emperor Justinian, while suffering with a headache, rested his head on the column and the pain ceased. Visitors have been touching the column ever since and it has taken its place among the notable features of the building.


Another feature described by the guide is the ablution fountain. This is actually located outside the main building and was built by Sultan Mahmud I in 1740.  


We don't know James Bond's opinion of Hagia Sophia, but he seems unimpressed by Istanbul's subterranean late Roman cistern. Bond meets Kerim Bey's brief description of the structure as they descend some steps and climb into a boat with a bored, 'really?' Kerim Bey tells Bond that the reservoir was built by the emperor Constantine 1600 years ago. This isn't strictly true. Known as the Basilica Cistern, the structure was built during the reign of Justinian 1400 years ago on the site of an earlier Roman basilica or market hall.


The Bond films remain a source of interesting cultural information that adds depth and credibility to the story. While accuracy has sometimes been sacrificed for cinematic purposes, the inclusion of local heritage is testament to the film-makers attention to detail and respect for the regions in which they are filming.

Photo credits:
Hagia Sophia (Urn, Wishing Column and ablution fountain): JoJan (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic )
Basilica Cistern: Public domain image by Gryffindor

Hitchcockian moments in the Bond films

The website Letters of Note recently publicised the telegram from Ian Fleming to fellow novelist Eric Ambler in which Fleming asks whether Alfred Hitchcock would be interested in directing the film project that he and Kevin McClory were developing (and which would become Thunderball). While Hitchcock never directed a Bond film, his influence can be detected throughout the Bond series. Let's look at some of those key Hitchcockian moments.

If Hitchcock had directed a Bond film, then it probably would have looked something like From Russia With Love, which is the most Hitchcockian of the whole series, and there are characteristic elements from the very start: the opening pre-titles sequence, which misleads the viewer into thinking Bond has been killed; the Lektor decoding machine, which provides a strong macguffin to drive the plot; duplicitous or ambivalent characters (Red Grant and Tatiana); the use of a restricted location (the Orient Express); and naturally the homage to North by Northwest as Bond is attacked by a helicopter.

North by Northwest is recalled again at the climax of A View to a Kill. The sequence on top of the Golden Gate Bridge, as Bond battles Zorin and rescues Stacey Sutton, brings to mind Hitchcock's use of famous landmarks, such as Mount Rushmore (North by Northwest) and the Forth Rail Bridge (The 39 Steps). Indeed, this element is use twice in A View to a Kill, as earlier in the film the narrative takes us to another landmark, the Eiffel Tower.

Then there are moments in the Bond films of genuine Hitchcockian tension. Of particular note is Bond's escape from Piz Gloria in On Her Majesty's Secret Service and the pursuit by Blofeld's men down the mountain to the village. Just as tense is Bond's attempt to defuse the nuclear bomb in the middle of the circus in Octopussy. Both sequences allow the tension to build before being resolved, and the tension is heightened by the juxtaposition of danger and jeopardy with celebration and happiness (a Christmas event and a circus). These recall films such as Strangers on a Train, which ends at an amusement park, and Notorious, which features a scene where Devlin (Cary Grant) and Alicia (Ingrid Bergman) surreptitiously investigate a wine cellar in the midst of a party.

Before the party, at Devlin's request, Alicia had taken the cellar key, from her father, a Nazi sympathiser, without his knowing. There is a similar Hitchcockian element in Thunderball, when Bond asks Domino to locate nuclear bombs on Largo's boat, thus putting her in danger.

Like From Russia With Love, For Your Eyes Only has a very strong macguffin, in this case the ATAC device. The film also presents a classic Hitchcockian character in Kristatos, who we think is on Bond's side, but is actually the villain. The concealed intentions of Live and Let Die's Rosie Carver is rather Hitchcockian, as is her checking into Bond's hotel as Mrs Bond, which along with all uses of false names at hotels in the Bond films, recalls The 39 Steps and the scene where Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) and Pamala (Madeleine Carroll) stay at a Scottish Inn under false names.

There are doubtless other Hitchcockian moments in the Bond films. While the involvement of Hitchcock in the Bond series presents an interesting 'What if?', we can see shades of his style throughout the series.

How to write a James Bond film

If you're lucky enough to be asked to write a James Bond film, where would you start? Typically the scripting process is collaborative, with ideas emerging through discussions between the writers, producers and the director. Even so, the writers to a large extent are still able to stamp their own personality and style onto the script. But what inspires them?

In an interview with Movieline, John Logan, screenwriter for Skyfall, admitted being a big fan of the film series in general, but thought Goldfinger (1964) the best and From Russia With Love (1963) 'top-notch espionage'. This suggests that Logan has drawn his inspiration from the earlier films, and this seems to have been confirmed by producer Michael G Wilson, who told People magazine that the film will have a '60s, 'magical Goldfinger feel'.

This sounds all very promising, but it's not the first time that writers have sought inspiration from Connery-era films. Jeffrey Caine, who co-scripted GoldenEye (1995), said that the aim of that film 'was to bring back the...essence of the Bond movies that many people regard as the best – Goldfinger and From Russia With Love'. As much as I like GoldenEye, it is arguable whether this was achieved, but in any case, it is clear that Goldfinger and From Russia With Love have become well-established as the prototype Bond films.

There is a third inspirational film. Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, when considering ideas for The World is not Enough (1999), the first of their five Bond screenplays, looked to another well-regarded film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). Purvis said, 'it's a very faithful adaptation and a very good film'. Purvis was also quoted as saying that he wanted to 'Flemingise' the film, and both writers returned to Ian Fleming's novels to draw inspiration and mine them of unused episodes.

Writers usually express a desire to go back to the books and bring the essence of writing to the screen when the film series is in a period of renewal, as was the case with For Your Eyes Only (1981) following the excesses of Moonraker (1979), and of course Casino Royale (2006). There was also a 'back to basics' approach for Timothy Dalton's second Bond film, Licence to Kill (1989). Dalton had studied Fleming's writing for his portrayal of Bond, but was also impressed with Sean Connery's portrayal in (yes, you've guessed it) From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. Veteran Bond writer Richard Maibaum rewarded Dalton with a script that, as Cubby Broccoli intended, captured the spirit of those early films.

Another way of preparing a Bond script is to largely ignore Fleming and focus on the spectacular, so that the film is a succession of set-pieces, thrills and spills, connected by the thread of a plot. This was Roald Dahl's approach when he wrote You Only Live Twice (1967). The book was regarded as unfilmable (a very poor decision in my view and a waste of a great novel), and Dahl's script reflected the huge budget and Broccoli's aim to make the film big, especially in the face of fierce cinematic competition.

Fleming was also (largely) ignored for Octopussy (1983). (I have a soft spot for the film, but I can't help wishing that more of the original story had made it to the screen.) Co-scriptwriter George MacDonald Fraser introduced ideas, notably taking Bond to India and swashbuckling action, that reflected his interests; Fraser had soldiered in India during the Second World War, and his Flashman series of novels were crammed with exciting, exotic, action.

For a successful film, then, the screenwriter must read Fleming, take the spirit of the films From Russia With Love and Goldfinger, and include lots of action and spectacle. From the little that we know of the film, Skyfall appears to have these essential ingredients. The film could be the best Bond film yet.

References

Fraser, G M, 2002 The light's on at Signpost, Harper Collins
Hibben, S, 1989 The making of Licence to Kill, Hamlyn
Owen, A (ed.), 2004 Story and character: interviews with British screenwriters, Bloomsbury
The official GoldenEye movie souvenir magazine, 1995, Titan
Treglown, J, 1994 Roald Dahl, a biography, Faber and Faber

A real-life James Bond

He was an Old Etonian who spent his war years with the Secret Intelligence Service in Malta and Italy. After 1945 he was posted to Vienna where he was appointed SIS station head. In a long career, he served successively as station head at Berlin, Bonn and Beirut. Throughout his life he was a devoted skier. He learnt to ski in 1916 aged 2, and he captained the British skiing team in the 1936 Winter Olympics. During his retirement, he returned each year to Mürren in Switzerland.

War-hero, skier, spy. Peter Lunn, who died in November aged 97, could have been the model for James Bond. I don’t know whether Ian Fleming knew him, but I wonder whether Peter Lunn made his mark on the world of 007 in another way.

One of Peter Lunn’s achievements while working for SIS was to pioneer the excavation and use of tunnels to allow the intelligence service to eavesdrop on the KGB. In Vienna, he arranged for tunnels to be dug which would intercept communication cables between the Soviet embassy and the city’s airport. The operation lasted from 1948 to 1951. In Berlin in 1955, a tunnel was excavated deep into East Germany and enabled Soviet communications to be tapped. The ruse was exposed in 1956, but not before years’ worth of useful material had been gained.

Given the success of the tunnelling operations, what must SIS chiefs have thought when they turned to chapter 16 of From Russia, with Love (1957) and read a description of a tunnel extending from SIS Station T in Istanbul to the Soviet embassy? The details do not match entirely – Fleming’s tunnel allows Kerim Bey to physically spy on the Russians with the use of a periscope, rather than to tap their communication cables – but the general idea is the same.

At this time, Ian Fleming still had connections in the intelligence community, and it is possible that he heard of Peter Lunn’s tunnels and thought it worth adapting for his latest novel. If so, then, to paraphrase M in his obituary of James Bond in You Only Live Twice, if the degree of the description's veracity had been any higher, Fleming would certainly have been prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act.